Silent Hill: Within
by Dan Charrington
Summary: Darren Owens has lived a hard life as a drifter after his sister and only family disappeared years ago. He's woken up in his dying truck just outside of Silent Hill...


Waking on that late spring morning in the year 2009 was very different from anything a young man named Darren Owens had experienced in his 24 years on this Earth. Unlike the many times he had awoken in a strange halfway house or the unfamiliar room of the abandoned building he and his sister were currently squatting in, there was no immediate fear. There was no sense of urgency or immediate need for him to keep moving for fear of being discovered by the cops or the people from the orphanages. There were no aches in his side from sleeping too heavily on unyielding stone or hard wood. There wasn't even the soft sting of fatigue and contempt that often hung over him as time unfolded another challenging day in his life.

There was only the fog, and the sleepy town of Silent Hill that lay just beyond it.

- 1 -

The quiet of the morning was so potent that Darren wasn't even sure he was awake yet. Then he felt the cool breeze on his cheek as it seeped through the small gap between his driver side window and the door frame of the old pickup truck he had dozed off in. Grey-white light poured through the trucks dingy windows and shaded the inside of the cab with a mire of grey-tones.

He brought his hand up to his face and massaged it until the weight of his eyelids receded. He then peered out the window. The fog was thick and empty. The road next to him curved away sharply and then seemed to vanish into the limbo that hovered not more than ten feet away. Darren stared into the blank fog for a few minutes as his mind attempted to restart itself.

"Why did I drive so long?" he thought. "I might have wrecked."

Darren gave no second thought to his own question and began to shift in his seat, propping himself into a fully upright position. The keys were still in the ignition and he reached out for them. Turning the small silver key with the initials "D.C" carved roughly into it, he felt the truck's engine begin to churn. It whirred for a moment in a fury of sickly sounding clunks and rattles and for a short second Darren thought it would actually turn over on the first try this time.

No such luck however. The clunking stopped dead and the truck went silent. Darren released a sigh that suggested he was somewhat frustrated, but not all that surprised, and then tried the key again. More noises came from the front of the truck, but they sounded even unhealthier than the first set. The clunks were low and seemed to lose strength with each that passed. Darren twisted the key several more times but only the same clunks kept ringing out.

Finally Darren released the key and sat back in his chair. He didn't want to admit it but somehow he knew the old shit-box was done for. The thing had barely run steady when he could get it moving, and he suspected every time he climbed into the thing that there was always the chance this would happen. It was a sickly feeling that would creep up his arm and make his hand freeze hesitantly every time he turned on the ignition.

And now it had happened. He didn't know much about cars but something inside told him that there was no way this rusty thing was going any further. Reaching for the door, he pulled the handle towards him and the door fell free from its weakened grip on the vehicle's frame. It swung open rapidly with a stirring creak like that of a rusted gate.

Darren stepped out of the truck, his boots falling heavily on the dirt as he emerged into the dim grayness. His arms and legs moved stiffly and he stood for a moment without moving before he stretched his arms up to the off-white sky.

Darren had slept in the same drifter outfit he had been wearing for a few days now. His dusty blue jeans had rips on the knees and near the seams at the bottom, and he had on a faded white t-shirt under his brown leather jacket. He considered the jacket to be a treasure when he had found it discarded in the waste dumpster behind the "Smily's Pit Stop" he had parked and slept in. He never would have noticed it if the jacket's arm hadn't been hanging out of the dumpster like a big brown tongue. Its leather was cracked and stained but it was good enough to keep Darren from constantly shivering himself awake when the spring nights didn't get quite warm enough.

He let his arms fall to his sides, and then quickly did the jacket's dull zipper up as he felt a tremor creep up from the small of his back. He felt hungry and his throat was dry and hoarse. The last thing he could remember eating was a couple of handfuls of Cheetos and a squishy rotten pare. He was certain that the plastic wrapper with the cartoon cheetah and paper bag the pare and many other pares like it had been in were on the floor of his truck still—just as empty as they were the last time he went fishing for them.

Darren turned and looked back at the truck, his exhaustion fading away to disgust. "You couldn't have died near a phone huh?" he asked the truck, and then turned back towards the road. He walked to its edge and then followed the nearly invisible white line that traced along its side.

He had barely gotten far enough from the rusty rig to lose sight of it in the fog when he slowed his pace to a stand. He had heard something and it had made him stop. It was a scratch of some kind, as if someone had kicked a large piece of sandpaper across the pavement. He turned back and peered at the truck.

The pickup hadn't moved. It sat there quietly—a silhouette in an endless white world. It seemed to be almost laughing at him, as if it had just tossed him out of a bar or movie theater. "Go on" it seemed to say. "Go find your own way home, loser! You are going to die out here in this fucking fog, you pathetic loser!"

Darren scoffed back it, offended by its imaginary remarks, and continued walking. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked along the edge of the road as its curve straightened out. The road was wide and barren but Darren kept to the edge as he walked. The fog—thick and imposing—made him feel as if the entire world was empty, but he still didn't want to chance being struck by some other fool trying to make his way through it. Even if the driver was only crawling along at a mere ten or twenty kilos, he'd still be sent for a trip if he was nailed.

There was a sound of water sloshing against some kind of brick or cement surface and Darren turned his eyes to the far side of the road. Forgetting his newly declared safety precautions already, he moved towards the other side of the street, trying hard to see if he could spot to the far side.

As if to compliment the vast cloud of fog that stretched beyond his vision, beneath the grey air, broken only slightly by the placid breeze that had began to stir, was what looked to Darren like the shore of an ocean. Except this ocean's peak was a few feet down from the street level, and the edge of the escarpment was guarded by a small rusted cliff-guard that ran along the road's far side.

Darren had now crossed the road entirely and was walking next to the cliff guard, his eyes resting on the shimmering silver water that rippled gently across its surface. Occasionally it came to a soggy slap against the escarpment wall. The water carried with it a scent that was damp and heavy like the inside of an old bathroom after someone had just used the shower.

Darren continued to walk, his hands in his pockets, his eyes on the water. After some time he grew tired of staring into such a lifeless lake and turned his eyes back to the road—the black tarmac that emerged ahead of him and disappeared behind him with every step. He had nearly put the length of three and a half football fields behind him before he started to wonder if maybe he was stuck out in the middle of nowhere—the nearest town more than a day's hike away and not a single highway stop for miles.

In the end it was the cliff-guard that gave him hope. The thin slab of metal held up every few dozen feet by a damp wooden post looked as if it's most recent paint job was beginning to flake off. Under it, Darren could see even through the fog the amount of rust the paint was trying to cover up. He began to wonder just how effective such a decrepit construction really could be against an out of control automobile hurtling towards it and the murky tomb it supposedly protected. It didn't matter though. It was there, and that meant someone had put it there, and that meant there was a chance that someone had put other things nearby—things with phones and vending machines in them.

- 2 -

It was the tickle in his nose that made him stop. Darren sneezed loud into his coat sleeve and the sound blasted its way through the empty street and into the air around him. The still fog that clouded his vision seemed to swallow the noise in an instant, and Darren was left in silence once again.

He wiped his nose on his sleeve and continued walking, his shoes shuffling across the damp grey tarmac. His legs were beginning to shed their sleeping stiffness and he found it easier to move. The cliff-guard guided him around the steadily curving edge of murky water until it abruptly right-angled and disappeared off into the fog.

Darren was now striding somberly next to a patch of unkempt grass. As he continued further, the first thing he had seen through the fog since he left his truck behind began to take shape through the translucent air. The grass he had recently discovered wasn't that of some random forestland he had come across—it was a lawn. A massive front lawn that stretched beyond the borders of his vision in both directions, and what he saw beyond it made him slow his pace and really adjust his eyes for the first time this morning.

At first he mistook the large building for a rundown church, but as he got closer, edging his way on to the wet grass, he began to reconsider. There were no crosses or stained glass windows anywhere on this building—or what appeared to be the remains of a building. Heaps of broken and scorched wood were scattered across the wide cement porch that ran from either end of the building's front side. Looking up, Darren guessed that it once stood nearly three stories tall before it had been destroyed. The walls were coated in dark ash and salted with shattered glass from the empty windows. The center of the building seemed to have gotten it the worse, looking as though it had imploded in on itself like a melted candle.

Darren stared at the building, trying to guess what it had been before it burned. It was too big to be a house, unless some nut had built his summer mansion way out here in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps it was a roadside café or something. Darren had heard that some of the smaller towns in the country still catered to old fashioned clients who enjoyed a rustic, authentic café experience.

What came next made Darren jolt. The spasm was so intense he cried out sharply. "They drowned you know" a woman's voice called out to him.

Turning towards the stone steps that led up to what used to be one of the building's main entrances, Darren spotted a large heap of blankets and torn coats surrounding a person's head. The face was that of a woman's. It was round and dirty, with its lips slightly open and its eyes closed. The woman had sheltered herself in her little fortress of blankets and coats and appeared to be sleeping.

Darren took a second to calm himself then stepped towards the lady. He cautiously approached her and tried to see if she was completely asleep.

"Hello?" he called out to her. The saggy old lady shifted her weight and stirred a bit, but did not awaken.

"Um, hey lady!" he said, louder.

She suddenly erupted from her dosing and a whirl of light mumbles, her eyes opening wide and her arms fluttering beneath her blankets. Darren thought she must have been dreaming and he had maybe awaken her at that one pivotal moment in your average nightmare where all the walls begin to collapse or the monsters catch up with you.

"Your fault—"she began, at first speaking to nobody. She then spied Darren and looked directly at him. The sight of him seemed to calm her and she settled back into her womb of old jackets. She sat quietly for a while, only looking at Darren eyes. He felt uncomfortable at her stare, and turned to look around him, as if by reflex, to see if anyone else had witnessed this embarrassing encounter. It was rather silly of him though. He knew there wasn't another living thing around anywhere within sight.

"Um, hey" he began, turning back to her. "Listen, I'm a little lost. Do you know where to find a phone around here?"

Her eyes lowered. "Nobody to guide you. Poor child." Her voice was soft and aged.

Darren looked at her dumbly. "No, I guess not." The lady was staring at the ground now. Darren was sure she would fall back asleep in front of him. His eyes moved to the burnt mansion-sized building behind her. "What is this place?" he asked.

"Such a special place" she began once again, talking slowly. "But nobody is here anymore. He left to be with her."

Darren's unease deepened. "Um…" he muttered again, unsure what question to ask next.

"The town is very near. It has a special sign that only we can see" she spoke, clearer than before.

"What? A town? Where? Is it very far from here?" Darren asked quickly.

The lady looked up at Darren again. Her face was drowning in concern, but it was her eyes that really got to him. They seemed so lost. "You shouldn't be alone there. The lost get swept away from those that live above. It can't be helped"

Darren tried to interpret her words, but the news of a nearby town was all he heard. He began to walk back towards the road, away from the grass lawn and the stony throne that held up his broken guide.

"Wait" she cried out to him with great effort but little strength.

He stopped and turned back, speaking loud through the fog to her. "I'm sorry lady. I didn't mean to disturb you."

"Young man, please. Don't go" she said. "Lust leads to denial, denial leads to wrath, wrath spews its blackness forward and soon all goes dark! Please!" her tone had risen to that of a somber wail.

Darren turned from her quickly and walked on, his hands in his coat pockets. The lady's weak cries died down behind him as she disappeared into the fog. His chest felt cold and he felt his feet come down hard as he stepped back onto the road. The lawn ended and a stony sidewalk began where it met the edge of the burnt building's property. Darren remained on the road however, wishing more than ever that he was in a diner or gas station. It was only after there was nothing behind him but the mirrored sight of the road dissolving into white that he finally began to breathe normally and continue walking into the strange fog.

- 3 -

Darren peered upward and attempted to seek out the sun amidst the terribly ongoing fog. He wasn't sure how long he had been walking since he had left his truck or the burnt down mansion behind him. He couldn't even be sure if it was still morning or not. All there was above him was the whiteness, still and calm, reaching far above and beyond his eyes. Darren wondered how such an unnaturally thick fog could happen. The past few months had been warming up and he figured winter was long gone by this time of year. He never cared for winter. There was always something about the cold air that reminded him of his youth, lying trembling in an abandoned house or on some street corner, his head resting on his sister's knee.

Darren's eyes came down and spotted something ahead of him on the side of the road. Lined with identical stony sidewalks, the road continued straight past what Darren could see a sign, posted on two rusty poles on the road's other side. He slowed his pace and tried to focus his vision through the fog.

The large wooden sign had faded dark green paint peeling off of it. On this green canvas there was a large face to one side. The face was cartoony, or at least it had been when it was first drawn. As Darren neared it though he saw that time and weather had aged it into a grotesque looking creation. Darren figured it to be some kind of cartoon animal's head, like a squirrel or a rabbit. It had a round white eyes dotted with big black pupils, and the mouth was a drained smile with two big white buck teeth in the middle. Its button nose was black as its pupils, and extending from its head were two short ears, both the same light teal color as the creatures upper face.

It _was_ a rabbit! Darren stared at it almost hypnotized, and then looked at the faded orange lettering beside it:

**Lakeside Amusement Park**

**Next Turn!**

**Come and enjoy the laughs today!**

Darren peered past the sign and looked further down the road. There was a turn that hooked left shortly after the sign. Darren could just see the edge of the closest corner. Looking back at the sign, his eyes were once again drawn to the ugly rabbit's. He wanted to say something clever to the sign, but stopped himself suddenly. Beneath the rabbit's head there was something else written—something darker than the faded peppy welcome message the sign was originally placed with. Whoever had scrawled it onto the bottom edge of the signs wooden frame had chosen a darker color that looked almost black through the fog. Darren read the single word written there, and then froze.

_**fAll**_

Darren could see the pool that had collected on the ground beneath the sign. Against the grass and mud, the ink looked to be a dark shade of red. Darren stepped back from the sign.

"What the hell?" he finally spoke. He didn't want to believe what his imagination was already spitting forward. This wasn't paint. This was blood! Someone had bled the word FALL on this sign and then disappeared.

Darren shook his head and turned away from the sign and back to the road. He commanded his legs to carry him far away from this sign and into the fog, but they didn't listen. His whole body was locked. The stiffness tightened all the way up to his neck and Darren closed his eyes.

Finally all the rationality of the world seemed to come to him at once, and Darren exhaled harshly as he felt this panic loosen over his arms and stomach, and then disappear altogether. "The kids out here must have pretty wild imaginations" he thought to himself. "They probably killed some rat with a rock or something and decided to mess with the tourists."

Darren entertained the idea of turning down the road towards the amusement park for a few minutes. Surly it would be abandoned and possibly even all boarded up if the condition of the sign and the hotel were any kind of indication as to the maintenance standards this city was practicing. Darren imagined slipping through rusted turnstiles, seized in place by time and the weather, and hunting through a lifeless shell of empty stores and motionless rides. The thoughts seemed too unusual to be taken seriously, yet he couldn't stop his imagination. It was that odd writing beneath the hideous rabbit's head that had spun him down this trail of thought.

Finally Darren turned from the sign and continued walking. He kept his distance from the road's turn and simply followed the faded line that separated the road further into the mist. The sound of the nearby lake once again sloshing softly against the road's high edge cleared his thoughts and focused his resolve.

Darren didn't see any more signs or burnt down buildings for a good ten minutes. He dared to guess that since he had left his truck he had been walking now for nearly a half hour. His mouth was sticky and he felt thirsty. His exhaustion from his sleep had been replaced with a different hanging sense of weariness. Something heavier that cried out for the sight of someone who wasn't crazy or something that wasn't so apparently abandoned. Above all else, Darren was just sick of the fog. He hunted around again in vain for the soft glowing orb in the sky, but couldn't see it. The overcast was so thick he couldn't even guess what time of day it actually was.

Then in the distance, another building finally took shape. This time Darren quickened his pace towards it. Once again the side of the road with the rusted cliff-guard ended and Darren came towards a small box shaped building with large shutters the size of trucks in them. The remains of rusted auto shop tools were littered here and there on the cement around them, and it wasn't until Darren approached the first large shutter door that he noticed the smaller man sized wooden door with a brass door handle next to it.

Darren moved to the door to try the handle, but stopped as he got to it. The door was on the building's far side, and there was another similar box shaped building next to it, separated only by a six foot wide ally between the two. More tools were sprawled on the ground, including a few dead tires and rusted bumpers. What Darren saw on the ground between the two buildings brought the familiar paralysis back to his legs. His mind retracted to the sight of the words sprawled in dark red under that stupid rabbit's head on the amusement park's sign. "Is this another joke by the same stupid kids?" his mind screamed out at him.

It could have been motor oil that was spilled on the ground. Darren was fairly certain these were garages and the idea of a broken down vehicle losing a quart or two as some rustic mechanic with a greasy forehead and filthy overalls ratcheted around in its dying inners didn't seem too unlikely. What made Darren pause and his mind scream was how the pool of darkness gathered there hadn't just sit, but instead streaked down the length of the alley as if someone had dragged a sack of heavy trash through it, smearing the blackened liquid down the narrow path and out of sight.

The reservations Darren had had about turning down the road towards the Lakeside Amusement Park had been cautious and unnerving, but now Darren was starting to hinge on panic. He pulled his hand away from the door of the garage, moved back to the road and started walking again, his eyes darting every which way except towards the two garages, which he passed by quickly.

He hadn't gotten too far when the road became a bridge. The lake that had been by his side, disappeared around the burnt down hotel, and had met him again after he had passed it now lay out ahead of him beneath the road's drawbridge. Darren couldn't see anything on the other side, and the road now looked more than ever that it simply stretched out into nothing at all, and that anyone who continued down it would be swallowed into nonexistence along with it.

Darren began to cross, not thinking. There was a thought in his head that moved his feet across the pavement, although he wasn't sure he was really listening to it and was instead still just trying to run away from the odd smear at the garage or the weird amusement park sign. Like the cliff-guard, someone had built this bridge. Bridges of pavement and white paint don't just create themselves over time. Someone had built it, and that meant it had to lead somewhere. That was what Darren could have kept saying to himself over and over until he made it to the bridge's far side. It all made sense to him. It was as simple as adding one and one together and getting two. One side of the bridge plus another side equals a practical and reasonable bridge that would carry him over the still water and through the thick whiteness around him.

But one and one didn't equal two this time and Darren stopped. His equation didn't work out properly. As he stared ahead of him, one plus one appeared to equal zero—nothing. He didn't even see an equally destroyed second half of bridge. There was nothing at all beyond the crumbled cliff he now stood at. Below his feet, the cold water was quiet and motionless. He was standing on the world's largest diving board with nothing looking back at him but the fog.

"What the—"he finally exhaled. Cautiously he peered down the edge of the bridge. If something had destroyed it, whatever it was it had done a neat and tidy job. The road's edge didn't look scorched or shattered or in any kind of battered shape. It just looked as though it had only been half built to begin with. As if the architect had just decided to make half a bridge and stop.

Darren swallowed hard and brought his hands to his temples. "What kind of place is this?" he asked the fog.

_SHHHNNNNNNNNK_

As if to answer him, a noise blasted the silence and made him yell. Darren whirled around and cried out "who… what is that?" Again, he saw nothing. The road was behind him and it was empty. He stood, frozen in rage and confusion. "Fuck this" he finally said and began to march back towards the garages.

- 4 -

Darren arrived at the smaller garage first, which was next to the one he had almost tried the door of before noticing the ally between them and the strange stain on the ground. This one also had big metal shutters and a small man sized door. Darren grabbed the handle of the small door and began to turn it. The knob turned and turned, and Darren felt it spin at least twice before he realized there was no resistance. Darren pulled on the handle but the door didn't move. He twisted it some more, and pushed and pulled the door frantically. The door stood solid, seemingly seized into its frame. Darren scoffed at it and looked towards the other building.

He then thought of the ally. "What if whatever had been dragged through that pool of oil was lying at the end of that pathway?" his head asked him. He was in no mood to answer though, and pushed the thought aside as he started towards the other garage. He caught sight of the doorway and never took his eyes off it. His walk spoke with the degree of a parent approaching they're naughty child, ready to deliver some discipline.

Darren's hand came down tight on the door's handle and turned hard. The knob resisted but turned just like a normal door handle. He yanked the handle, but the door didn't open. Frustrated, he pulled again harder. There was a crack as the door burst free and Darren fell off balance. He quickly ducked inside. The air inside the garage was no warmer but smelled awful. He could see more scattered piles of abandoned tools and various small car parts. There were no cars that he could see from the acute amount of foggy light that came from the open doorway.

Darren fumbled on the wall near the doorway for a light switch of some kind, but there was none. His hands finally came down on a tool box filled with dusty screwdrivers, a wrench, and something else that Darren seized immediately—a flashlight. It was small and black, and as Darren clicked it on it rattled a bit in his hand. The beam of light that shot out from its lamp was bright and Darren quickly surveyed the garage. He still couldn't see any cars, but there were a few motors propped up on tables further inside. Deflated boxes were piled around the walls, some wrapped in ripped tarps, others in garbage bags. The lift in the center of the garage was down in the ground and there were tires and spare parts leaned against some of the support beams. Darren figured the building must have doubled as a warehouse because he saw dirty lawn furniture, rusty garden tools and a dozen paint cans, all coated in crusty dark colors.

Darren began scanning for a phone, moving slowly inward. The outside door slowly creaked closed, leaving him only in the glow of his flashlight. There were no windows, and only the faintest amount of light creeping in beneath the large shutter door and the small one next to it. He moved quickly, darting the light across the walls and the surface of any table he could see, but all he found was more evidence of a poorly kept garage. The horrible smells were overpowering his concentration, and he coughed a few times as he continued his search in the silent darkness.

Finally he spotted an office tucked in the corner. It was tiny and walled by glass and another door. Darren navigated through the pitch dark garage and made his way to the door, which opened into an equally unkempt office. Standing in the doorway, Darren scanned the office with his flashlight. The desk was littered with work orders and invoices that all looked hand written and filthy. On the far side of the office, hanging from the wall as if a single weak nail was holding it up, was the cradle for a rotary phone with the handset laying on the floor beneath it.

Darren gathered the phone in his hand and held it near his ear. No sound came from the headpiece, and Darren quickly clicked on the cradle, attempting to bring some life to it. Darren heard the sound of clicking in the headset suddenly, and froze in suspense. The phone went silent again, and Darren continued to tap away on the cradle. Each time the same clicks, but no dial tone.

Darren began hammering on the 0 key, and then all the keys, but it seemed the phone was broken beyond any use. He cursed and slammed the headset on the cradle, making it fall to the floor again. It clattered on the floor loudly, and as if to answer it an even louder crash came from within the garage. Darren twitched in its direction and pointed his flashlight out of the office's dirty windows, locked in surprise.

"Hello" Darren cried out. He held the tiny black flashlight in both hands in front of him like a weapon, not moving at all. "Who's there? Hello?" he cried again. He waited in the silence. He thought at first that an animal of some kind was in the garage with him, scavenging around for food and knocking over tires. He felt he'd surly be able to hear it if he remained still and held his breath.

The beam of light he waved around showed nothing new, and when his chest finally felt as if it would burst, he sighed slowly and quietly. He still stood frozen in his alert position listening. What he heard next was softer and seemed more distant. The silence of the street he had been walking seemed to dissolve into a low hiss. This hiss grew louder and Darren could hear the odd _plunk_ on the roof of the garage.

"Rain?" Darren thought to himself, but then something else began to seep through the noise outside. There was a low moan way off in the distance that seemed to get louder and higher in pitch. Somewhere far away, a loud siren was beginning to blare, and the noise sounded large enough to span across an entire county. Darren's eyes dashed all around the dark room as the sound got louder and then receded. Again the wailing sound rushed from the distance, intensifying and quieting over and over. The sound was overbearing, as if the whole world was crying out again and again in an echo of distress.

Darren's paralysis finally shattered as he made a panicked rush out of the office and into the garage, desperate to escape the total blackness of the unlit building. He looked around for the crack of light beneath the shutters or the door he had entered, but couldn't find it. He shined the light around the general direction he thought it was in, and finally spotted the small door, closed tight. There was no light under the frame now, and Darren paused for a second. He was now relying completely on his little flashlight to see.

Darren didn't have time to wonder if this new storm had something to do with this. His feet were already carrying him back to the door, and as he got a grip on the handle he threw his shoulder into it and burst out of the garage, the door making a loud _BANG_ as he charged it. He stood for only a second and then started to breath heavily as gasps of shock began to escape his mouth.

The darkness of the garage now blanketed the entire street. Darren couldn't see beyond the shine of his flashlight, and as he looked down, he saw the ground had changed as well. The cold cement was replaced by thick rusted grating that was enough to keep Darren or anything else from falling through, but also offered a chilling view beneath it where nothing at all seemed to stretch down to the bottom of the earth. Rain splashed down around him, pinking occasionally on the brown metal of the grated ground before dripping down into the seemingly endless blackness below.

Darren continued to gasp, nearly screaming now. He shined his light into the night in every direction, but he couldn't see anything besides big fat raindrops screaming down from the sky around him. He stepped slowly out away from the building, his hair and jacket now soaking up the rain that fell onto it.

At last he tensed up and began to yell. "HELLO? HELP!" he cried out. Turning in the direction of the second building he dashed forward towards it, his flashlight held out in front of him like a knife. The metal of grated ground clanked under his boots as he ran towards the second building, and then stopped again, this time abruptly enough that his boots slid out from beneath him. Darren fell hard and his ass made hard contact with the wet grating. The flashlight was kept in his tight grip and Darren aimed it at the door of the second building, gasping again as he nervously tried to keep it pointed steady.

Whatever it was that was standing just outside the door could have been a man. It was at least man shaped, but Darren could see even in the dim light of his flashlight that it wasn't a man. It stood crooked and appeared to be covered in filth. Darren saw it turn its bulbous looking head in his direction, and then saw something that simultaneously convinced him that not only was this _thing_ not a man or woman, but that he was also dreaming. He had to be. Only in dreams-_nightmares_-did things like this shit exist.

Hanging down from the lower half of the thing's head was a slab of wormy flesh that seemed to replace its entire lower jaw and hung down to about its knees, coming to a rounded cone-shaped tip at the end. Darren sat and gazed at it in horror. He kicked at the ground to try and shamble away, but the wet metal offered no traction and his boots only slid in vein across its surface.

The thing recoiled suddenly and arched its entire back backwards, bringing the front of its head back to point at the falling rain. What Darren heard next made him cry out in a terrified frenzy. The creature blared out a twisted gargled scream. Its whole body trembled and its head shook from side to side. Darren screamed along with it over and over as it wailed away, its armless body pulsing in the cold darkness as its grotesque tongue-jaw dangled across its limbless body.

Finally the thing stopped, dropped its head down again, letting its deformed tongue slap against the grating, and charged towards Darren. He rolled quickly to the side just as the creature leapt from the ground and dived in his direction, its head like a slippery cannon ball rolling towards him.

Darren heard the thing thud along the wet grating and roll off a few feet away in the darkness. He got to his feet quickly and began to run away from it. He kept the flashlight aimed ahead of him on the grated ground. The rain around him poured down and flooded his vision and other senses, but all he could think of was getting away from the thing with the deformed jaw. His senses spun as he sprinted along the grating, loud _CLANK_ noises ringing out every time his boots made contact. Fueled by panic, Darren ran until he came to the bridge he had found earlier.

The half finished concrete that had made up the bridge mere moments ago had also been replaced by the same twisted rusty metal grating. He kept running, not thinking. It wasn't until he had run out of breath that his strides began to lose their balance, and he slipped again on the grating, falling flat on his chest. The grating was hard and unyielding and Darren groaned in pain. He scrambled again to his feet, his face and chest now burning with fresh soreness.

The horrible cry of the creature's piercing shriek rang out again and Darren turned his flashlight behind him. The sound of fast moving bare feet against the creaky metal caught up to him more quickly then he could react to. He only caught a glimpse of the thing's smooth hairless head before it was once again charging right for him. His startled scream was cut short as the rushing monster collided with him. Its head was hard and sent Darren flying backwards in a dizzying flare of pain. He felt numb and heard the noise of the storm go silent around him. He couldn't remember landing on the grated ground before losing consciousness. All he could feel was his body falling deep into the darkness.


End file.
